(Guinness Record Holder for letters in Newspapers)
Central government should merge Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for a drastic reduction in overheads presently being spent in having two separate government-units having similar functions. MTNL was constituted for providing better telecom-facilities in metropolitan cities at a time when government had a monopoly in providing telephone-connections even in metropolitan cities. But MTNL has now lost its utility as separate entity because private-sector companies now dominate telecommunication-services in metropolitan cities.
Having BSNL and MTNL as separate entities serve no purpose other than having extra opportunity to appoint more and more favourites on high positions in two different entities rather than in one single entity. Public money can and should be saved by merger of MTNL with BSNL where some separate section can be established at BSNL itself for especially looking into telecom-services in metropolitan cities. Responsibility for falling graph of public-sector BSNL and MTNL in comparison to fast-growing rather dominating private-sector companies should be fixed on senior functionaries in these two entities.
